Every Waking Minute
by Peachdreamsandperseus
Summary: "He's holding onto her hand like his life depends on it - palms sweating and his whole body beginning to shake. He feels sick, both from whatever he'd been slipped and out of sheer guilt and humiliation. He's let her down and he doesn't think he'll ever forgive himself for it." - set during 3x01 SPOILERS AHOY!


**Just a small one-shot type thing based on 3x01, picking up from when Sybil takes Tom upstairs after the whole dining room incident. I could have gone on for thousands upon thousands of words for this, but I thought I was rambling enough as it is. Enjoy :) x**

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He's holding onto her hand like his life depends on it - palms sweating and his whole body beginning to shake. He feels sick, both from whatever he'd been slipped and out of sheer guilt and humiliation. He's let her down and he doesn't think he'll ever forgive himself for it.

They're at the door to her - **their** - bedroom before he even realises it and as soon as he crosses the threshold he drops her hand and strides across to the adjoining bathroom, throws himself down to his knees with a gentle _thud_ on the cold tiled floor and empties the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

Quick as a flash, she's kneeling by his side and rubbing soothing circles on his back before helping him to slip off his jacket.

"You don't have to do this you know," he says groggily.

Sybil sighs. "You've done this enough times with me since I've been pregnant… I feel like I'm returning the favour somehow."

Tom can't help but smile. "I don't deserve you."

"Hush now," she replies, falling so effortlessly back into her role as a nurse as she runs her fingers through the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

"No, I mean it," he continues. "I don't deserve you… and I'm almost certain you deserve better than me right now." He scrambles to his feet on somewhat unsteady legs in an attempt at retreat.

"Tom Eóghan Branson, you really are impossible sometimes!"

He stops dead in his tracks, clinging to the door frame for support as a fresh wave of dizziness and nausea washes over him - he hates it when she uses his full name. With a sigh, he turns his head to look at her and, as anticipated, he's confronted with none other than **Lady** Sybil sitting there on the floor, hands folded across her chest, chin held high and giving him a look that has most definitely been inherited from her grandmother.

"We knew this wasn't going to be easy," she says, her demeanour relaxing slightly. "From that very first conversation we had all those years ago, our friendship and now our marriage… it was always going to be hard where my family was concerned." She sighs and gets to her feet, welcoming the hand that he offers her to help her up. "If it's any consolation, I completely understand. I was absolutely terrified the first time I met your family… scared of rejection, of… of letting you down somehow."

"That's exactly how I feel," he mumbles.

"I know," she smiles, lovingly cupping his face in her hands. "Darling, I know… The thing you have to remember about Larry Gray is that he really is the most frightful… **shit**!"

Tom laughs - her language really has become much more colourful since she'd gone to Ireland. "So you never would have considered marrying him."

Sybil shakes her head. "No… never. Besides," she says with a smirk. "When he started pursuing me, I'd already started to take an interest in someone else." She pokes his chest, eliciting another smile from him and she thinks she might be getting through to him at last. She runs a hand over her belly, smiling as she feels the baby move.

Tom smiles as he watches her, realising that if ever there was proof of just how much she loves and adores him, it's this - their child. Pregnancy suits her and she looks more beautiful than ever. His musings are cut short as a blinding pain shoots through his head.

"I think… I think I need to go to bed now."

She reaches up and loosens the knot of his tie, slipping it free of his collar and draping it over the side of the bath before undoing the first few buttons of his shirt, lavishing gentle kisses along his neck and jaw before finally settling on his lips. She feels him instantly relax at his touch, wrapping his arms around her waist and drawing her into a tight embrace.

**_-xxx-_**

She waits until he's settled under the duvet before moving to sit beside him on the bed, her fingers playing with his hair again as he succumbs to sleep at last. Not a single day goes by where she doesn't count her blessings or thank her lucky stars that this wonderful, wonderful man found his way into her life. What had happened tonight had just been another bump in the road on this journey that they're taking together but it's the moments like this that prove to the world just how right and perfect they are together. Yes they fight and they argue from time to time, but they're there to catch each other when they fall.

Placing a kiss to his temple, she decides to return downstairs to say goodnight to everyone and let them know how he it, briefly pausing to admire his pocket watch left on the bedside table. She'd bought it for him as a wedding gift and, naturally, he'd protested and said that it was too much but he treasured it anyway. With a smile, she runs her thumb over the engraving on the case - the words he'd said to her, the promise he'd made, that first time he'd proposed to her in York translated (with help from his eldest brother, Niall) into Gaelic.

"_Every waking minute_"

He'd made that promise and he had fulfilled it. He loves her, she loves him… the rest is detail.


End file.
